Wynne: Time to get back to work
Premier-designate intends to be defined by what she does, with No. 1 priority calling back the legislature
TORONTO • Canada’s first gay premier-designate called her elevation to Ontario’s highest political office “historic” on Sunday, but stressed she intends to be defined by what she does for the province and not her sexual orientation.
“I am not a gay activist, that’s not how I got into politics, so I am not going to spend the next month talking about it,” Kathleen Wynne said at her first news conference after her dramatic selection as provincial Liberal leader at a Toronto convention Saturday.
“But it is important to me that young people — and people who are frightened — see the possibility that if I can help people to be less frightened, that’s a wonderful thing.”
Wynne said that what makes her proudest is seeing Canadian women slowly break the glass ceiling in Canadian politics.
When she is sworn in, likely next week, Wynne will become Canada’s sixth female premier.
The 59-year-old Wynne does have some history of community activism; among other things, she founded a group opposed to the amalgamation of Toronto.
She has a background in education, teaching English as a second language.
Wynne also ran her own small business, working as a conflict mediator for 10 years.
She lives with her partner of 25 years, Jane Rounthwaite, and has three children from an earlier marriage as well as two grandchildren.
Wynne told reporters her No. 1 priority is to call back the provincial legislature and start working for Ontario. Wynne, who has promised to recall the House Feb. 19, challenged the opposition to end the rancour that has dogged Queen’s Park in recent years, and work with her to solve the problems Ontarians want fixed.
Wynne said she had a short but fruitful conversation with Conservative leader Tim Hudak after her win, and hopes to talk again Monday. She is also trying to speak with NDP leader Andrea Horwath, whose party holds the balance of power in the minority legislature, about ways to set a new tone.
“The rancour and the viciousness of the legislature can’t continue,” she said. “We have to absolutely work out our disagreements. What I am hoping for is that if we can build relationships among the party leaders and the three caucuses, we will be able to have debate without the poison of that real viciousness.
“It is a partisan exercise but many of the issues we face as a province are not issues that are partisan.”
Wynne said the province has been hit hard by recent economic downturns: “Our whole manufacturing base, our whole economy, is shifting and so we together have to grapple with that.”
It is too early to gauge what effect Wynne’s olive branch will have on the opposition. Hudak has spent the past few months hammering the Liberals, saying they are unfit to govern. Several of his MPPs, including Nepean-Carleton’s Lisa MacLeod, have said publicly they will not support a Liberal budget and will work to defeat it, something that ultimately depends on the NDP.
‘We are going to be clear to the people of Ontario that we understand where there were missteps and where we need to go forward.’
KATHLEEN WYNNE
Hudak himself has been circumspect on the issue, but it would be a major surprise if the man who has been touring the province already in campaign mode suddenly has a change of heart.
Former Conservative leader John Tory, who was defeated by Wynne in his riding in 2007 to trigger events that led to Tory’s resignation as party leader, thinks the new Liberal leader’s government will last beyond the spring. He believes Ontarians are fair-minded and want to give Wynne time to prove herself.
“The people of Ontario will say about any new leader, including this one, ‘Give her a chance,’” Tory said.
Tory believes the real problem facing Wynne is how to square her self-described desire to be a “social justice” premier with the reality of a province whose biggest challenge is improving the economy and creating jobs.
“The good social justice candidate is smart enough to know that you can’t have social justice if you don’t have the money to pay for it,” he said.
Indeed, going into the leadership campaign, Wynne’s perceived weakness included the fact that she was a centre-left candidate when the times demanded a more centrist candidate in the mould of Dalton McGuinty, someone like Wynne’s top opponent in the race, Sandra Pupatello.
Pupatello had been perceived as the favourite of the Liberal establishment and going into Saturday’s first ballot was clearly the one with the momentum. But her camp, and many of those in Maple Leaf Gardens, were shaken when only two votes separated Pupatello and Wynne on the first ballot.
Suddenly, it felt like the aura of strength surrounding Pupatello had been ripped apart and it was Wynne’s team with the wind at its back.
Pupatello seemed to recover some of her mojo in the second ballot when she extended her lead by 67 delegates. The race was still tighter than many had predicted, but at least it gave Pupatello some breathing space.
The number crunchers on both sides went straight to work. What soon emerged was that candidate Charles Sousa held the destinies of both women in his hands.
Throughout the day, the feeling was that Eric Hoskins and Gerard Kennedy would back Wynne. And it seemed like a fait accompli that Harinder Takhar would cross over to Pupatello.
That left Sousa the man in the middle, and even though they had no guarantees, the Pupatello team was quietly confident he was on their side. A former banker, he seemed the perfect centre-right candidate to buy into Pupatello’s emphasis on jobs and the economy.
And then suddenly, all hell broke loose.
In one dramatic moment, everything changed. Sousa and Kennedy, with their supporters in tow swept across the convention floor, into the arms of Wynne. There was pandemonium everywhere as Wynne supporters suddenly realized that a prize that only minutes before seemed out of reach was in their hands.
On the other side, the disappointment on the faces of Pupatello’s supporters said it all.
Sousa told the Citizen that he marched to Wynne for a number of reasons, including his desire to see the legislature reopened quickly (Pupatello said she wanted to win a seat in legislature before ending the prorogation, a process likely to take more than a month). Sousa also said he thought Wynne had the best chance of governing.
“There were no deals. I made no deal with anyone,” he said Sunday.
Wynne now takes over a party that seems to have lost its way, and a government that after nine years in office appeared tired, out of ideas and low in the polls. It has been buffeted by scandal and controversy on everything from the Ornge air ambulance service to the mishandling of gas plants and prorogation.
There are certainly those who believe that by taking over a party that has seen better days, she is setting herself up for failure. But Wynne is certainly not among them: although she acknowledged mistakes have been made, she doesn’t believe the Liberals are badly damaged.
“I am not going to concede to repairing the brand,” she said. “I am going to build on the brand to evolve that brand.”
Wynne said that after a successful convention and the attention it attracted, the party is rejuvenated and ready for renewal. She plans to build on that momentum and win the confidence of Ontarians by taking steps to correct the mistakes of the past.
For instance, she said there could be legislation to improve oversight at the province’s broken air ambulance system and fresh discussions could be held with municipalities to give them more say in the location of green energy projects.
“We are going to be clear to the people of Ontario that we understand where there were missteps and where we need to go forward. We are going to demonstrate to the people of Ontario that we understand,” she said.
The Conservatives’ John Tory says the next three months will tell the story.
“When you take over as the new leader and premier of a party that been around for a while — and is a bit tired, to say the least — it makes your job that much more difficult,” he said. “If she establishes (in her first months) that she is a different person from what went on before, and earns the confidence of the people, she will be fine.”